Banish the Shadows
by GrindingV2
Summary: After years of inactivity, the church decides that it's high time to re-establish its foothold in Japan through the newest hotbed of activity - the Town of Kuoh. Erwin Jiang, a green exorcist with no sacred gear to speak of, is tasked with removing any hostile forces in the area and preparing the area for the next wave of expansion. My take on church politics and a non-op OC.
1. Chapter 1

Standing outside the crumbling structure, I couldn't help but let out a small sigh. The church in front of me was a broken mess. Christianity never really had much of a presence in Japan, but it still hurt to see a church in such a state.

I had no clue why they didn't simply send a team of Orthodox priests for a large scale mission like this, but then again bureaucracy was a beast that I never took the time to understand.

Nonetheless, I had my orders, and I'd carry them out. Sticking my hand out and spreading my fingers, I closed my eyes and recited a verse. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

A bright flash of light appeared over my head, before receding back into a small orb of condensed light hovering on top of my hand. No use for flashlights when you could summon light with practically zero magic drain.

Taking out one of my pistols from its holster, I raised it and walked into what was left of the church. Thankfully, I didn't find anything too suspicious. Only a few broken windows, scattered branches, rotting pews, and an altar that had seen better days. The air was stale, with small clouds of dust rising with each of my footsteps.

The basement was in slightly better condition, but only because it was bare of furniture. Instead, there was plenty of moss, as well as strange fungi that smelled of rotten meat all over the walls. Overall, there were no obvious signs of use since the church was abandoned.

Making my way back up the steps, I sat down in front of the altar, and focused on the currents of energy circulating throughout the building. After a few moments of concentration, darkness consumed me, drowning out all sound, before gentle waves of blue light danced around me, slowly weaving in and around invisible structures in the air.

Near the floor, dark red and purple clouds lay dormant and unmoving. Finally, beams of brilliant gold shined down upon me from the heavens, lighting up this view of the world and forcing back the red clouds.

Gently, I prodded the beams of golden light with my own energy, guiding it into the natural energy circulating around me. The blue waves around me began shaking before settling once again, travelling slightly faster and with hints of gold on their edges. Grinning slightly, I reached underneath my shirt for my cross, and finished making the field.

"But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice you."

Opening my eyes, I let out a long breath and wiped away the sweat on my brow. This church was going to be my base of operations for the next while, and it would've been extremely irresponsible of me not to construct a field around it.

The sunlight streaming through the windows seemed to glow a bit brighter, the birds chirped a little happier, and there was the feeling of a warm embrace while I stood inside the church. I could feel the small amounts of energy that the birds gave off, their life forces nudging against my now extended senses.

Truly, it was a shame that small miracles such as these couldn't be witnessed by those that hadn't activated their magical powers.

Nonetheless, my work here wasn't done. Over the coming days, I still had to add many more layers to my fields and reinforce them. Proper diplomatic relations still had to be established with the devils, and I would be the one continuing the process.

The streets of Kuoh needed another investigation as well, as I doubted that they'd been properly cleansed while the devils were the only ones operating in the area.

All in all, from what I could see, Kuoh was a quaint little town that, although contained a notable devil presence, was going to be a nice escape from the normal struggles of fighting mentally impaired monsters.

I was so wrong, but so right at the same time.

Kuoh was pretty close to your stereotypical modern Japanese town. It had a decently sized population, plenty of bland housing, and all the amenities you could come to expect from workaholic Japan. Given all that, there was still one major differentiating factor between it and any other town or city within a 20 mile radius - Kuoh Academy.

According to its webpage, the place had been an all girls private school and had only recently been converted into a co-ed one. I wouldn't have batted an eye at this, except for the fact that there was no way that the yearly tuition of 1 million yen they so confidently advertised on their website was enough to maintain a school of that size. The school also had a navigable website.

All that, coupled with the known devil activity, and there was no way that the place wasn't a devil hideout of some sort.

The higher-ups had apparently come up with the same conclusion and had sent the first message to set up a meeting. I still had to establish working relations with the resident devil's without pissing them off, and it had to be done soon, or I'd be risking a diplomatic incident that could result in my death and/or the collapse of the millennia old ceasefire. Piece of cake.

The entrance to Kuoh Academy reminded me of those mansions rich folks used to build back home in the 1800s. There was a high gate and a surrounding wall which opened up to a paved stone pathway, which in turn led to a large courtyard and water fountain that showed off the sheer size and architecture of the building.

The setting sun glittered brightly in the hundreds of windows arrayed along the front of the building. A good number of trees dotted the campus, while large hills rose in the back. Truly, it was a statement of sorts - displaying the wealth the devil's had through needless spending.

I got a few weird looks walking up to the front office, and the tuxedo and large briefcase certainly didn't help with that. In any case, I could probably maintain my anonymity as long as I dropped the suit in public.

Stepping inside the front office, I was immediately assaulted by the telltale smell of sulphur, primarily emitted by the front secretary. Forcing myself to breathe and act normally, I slowly walked up to her and gave my best smile.

"Hello ma'am. I'm Erwin Jiang, and I'm from the church." I said, taking out a letter with the confirmation papers within them. The secretary took the papers and began looking through them. "I believe I have an appointment with Tsubaki Shinra to discuss the specifics of a school trip to Vatican City?"

"You are correct sir," she replied, discreetly disposing of the papers in a flash of orange light. "She'll be right with you."

I mentally thanked the bishop tasked with handling the preliminary communications for not screwing up and praised the Lord for small mercies. For once, communication between factions had gone through and we hopefully wouldn't have a repeat of the Wallachia Incident…

My thoughts were interrupted as the office opened, and in walked an attractive teenage student with long black hair, holding a small clipboard in her left hand and wearing a scandalous stripper getup masquerading as a school uniform. The skirt was practically non existent, and the chest area was looked to be deliberately framed to exaggerate the prominence of her breasts. Yet despite her outrageous uniform, she walked with short, quick steps with her chin held high and a bland look on her face.

"Mr. Jiang, I presume?" she asked, extending her hand.

"Indeed. Thank you for giving this trip your time, Ms. Shinra. I'm sure it'll be a great success" I said, shaking her hand.

"Likewise, Mr. Jiang. Please, follow me." she finished, turning around and exiting the office. I followed after her, matching her quick pace and doing my best to memorize the layout of the corridors I was walking through. Planning ahead was always helpful, and having an escape plan would be vital if the meeting went tits up.

After 3 flights of stairs, we reached the student council office. Tsubaki opened the door and nodded towards me. Nodding back, I entered the room.

If the office had smelled of sulphur, this room was drowning in the scent. The smell was coming from all the occupants in the room, but a majority of it was coming from Tsubaki, and the girl sitting directly in front of me who was busy signing papers.

Around them, large sections of the back wall had been removed in favour of large windows looking over the front courtyard. Bookcases were placed on both sides of the room, with sofas on the left as well with a group of devil's sitting on them. This left a large open space in the center of the room. On the right, there was a large door, labelled "meeting room".

All the devil's looked young, but it was hard to tell with nonhuman species. As far as strength went, I could probably take any one of them in a drawn out fight, but with all the devil's present in the room I'd be easily overwhelmed - and this was without mentioning the staff that was probably 90% devil as well.

Slowly cleaning her eyes, the president sighed before standing up from the table and looking towards me. "I believe introductions are in order. I am Sona Sitri, representing one of two families operating in this town. You've already met Tsubaki, my Queen, and the rest of my peerage are sitting on the couches." she said, gesturing around the room.

I counted 8 devils present. It was a pretty full peerage, although probably a newer one with many of the pawn positions open. Given that there were two families at the sponsored highschool, it was likely that there was another peerage around, though why they didn't come out as well was a mystery.

Still, I continued with the formalities. "I'm Erwin Jiang, a representative of the church. The church has recently received reports of fallen angels in the area..." I briefly trailed off for a moment, feeling my palms starting to get sweaty.

Young devils could get trigger happy and do stupid shit like that one time in Chicago, and my fears of were becoming more and more pronounced because of the realization that if I so much laid a finger on a Sitri girl, the church would get fucking railed. Meanwhile, nobody of real importance would really care if I got killed, and even those who did wouldn't do anything meaningful about it.

Pausing for a moment, I collected my thoughts before continuing to speak. "In response, the church is looking to set up a permanent base inside the abandoned church to protect our Japanese assets, as well as open the door for future cooperation," I said, making sure to distance the church as much from myself as I reasonably could. Hopefully, that sort of language choice would subconsciously convince her to refrain from shooting the messenger.

"As a show of good faith, the church would like to return all the research notes taken during the Michaelis raids" I finished, placing the briefcase on Sona's desk, and showing her the contents. I saw her eyes light up for a moment as she went through the contents, and the sense of relief that washed through me felt amazing.

"Very well. We will allow the church's activities in the area as long as they don't directly interfere with our own goals, and follow the rules outlined in the 1955 Treaty of Rome," she said, before closing the briefcase and placing it behind her desk.

Wonderful. Another treaty that I'd have to read through. Still, she'd referred to the treaty I was told to accept, so I did just that. With the negotiations over, Tsubaki wordlessly escorted me out of the school.

After fulfilling my diplomatic missions, I dropped by the church to change into more casual clothing that still kept me armed. A pair of black pants and a jacket were all I needed for myself, especially when both interwoven with enchanted thread and the jacket had hidden compartments for my guns.

One of the many pros of operating from a rich nation - people were willing to donate large sums of money to religious organizations without even being prompted.

My primary objective was to scout out the town and learn things that a satellite search wouldn't be able to find. Hiding spots, more detailed information on topography, but also a read on any lasting residue from magical signatures.

The thing was, there was tainted holy energy strewn all over the town, to the point where it could be argued that the person running around didn't care about being noticed. While stray exorcists had a history of having a good time in devil territory, they were usually a lot more reserved in their actions, and only very rarely produced these crazy concentrations of holy energy.

Which left 2 more possible sources. Angels, and fallen angels. Given the tainted nature of the energy, it could have been tainted by the use of devil magic in the town, but it was far more likely that fallen Angels have made their presence known in the town. Why I hadn't felt it in the forest was a mystery, but here in the town it had an obvious presence.

I followed a few of these trails of magic, stopping often as I was led down seemingly meaningless alleyways.

I almost lost it when a certain trail I followed went all over the town, visiting seemingly random locations such as the mall, cafe, and an arcade of all places. It all coalesced into a final burst in a central park near a water fountain, where there was a notable spike in the levels of tainted magical energy. Given how unimaginative fallen were, I was willing to bet it was a light spear

All in all, the fallen angel presence was essentially proven in Kuoh. Establishing weaker fields in strategic locations was now the priority, in case any fights broke out and they had to be accessed.

They just had to be weak enough to not be noticed by any devil's that walked through the area. A simple gathering and restructuring of natural energy and holy energy were all that was required.

As the number of fields continued to grow, the day passed on as well. Soon the sun was setting and it was time to retreat back to the church to get some rest, which conveniently brought me in front of a dark alleyway, where I heard a muffled scream.

...God fucking dammit I didn't need this right now. I was worn out from the long day and was experiencing jet lag. The last thing I needed was a fight.

Nonetheless, I had confidence in my training, and a duty to uphold. And, at the end of the day, on some level I was eager to test myself against something other than sparring partners and mentally impaired beasts.

After casting a small combat oriented field, I went to investigate the sound. I found a smashed window and through it I saw... Oh shit. A man wearing a t-shirt and shorts was nailed to the wall on top of some sort of satanic ritual.

Long lacerations ran up and down his body, blood pooling on the ground beneath him. Candles burnt brightly on the floor around him as if they were feeding off of the life escaping the man's body.

Yet, through all his injuries, the way his eyes were still bulging and the faint movements in his chest told me he was still alive. Anger started to build in me, urging me to put down the sadistic fuck that did this. I cast another combat field, layering it with the first one.

I closed my eyes to feel the energy running through and around me in an attempt to concentrate my thoughts and focus my anger. God had blessed humans to protect each other, and just like all his children, his greatness ran through me. I'd live through this fight and stop whoever had done this from ever doing it again.

My goal was righteous, execution perfect, and if I took my time any foe could be beaten. My doubts temporarily silenced, I reached into my jacket's inner pockets, threw on a thin pair of flexible bracers and greaves, and powered on both of my pistols.

Taking a deep breath, I jumped through the window, guns drawn and very deliberately set to absolutely lethal power levels. Before I continued my mission however, I walked up to the chained man and put a round between his eyes, putting him out of his misery and praying that he'd find peace in his death. His wounds were far too severe for me to heal, and there was no way I'd be able to get him to someone capable of healing him in time. Better to end his suffering early on.

With that done, I took a peek down the hall, and I saw a young man with neck long silver hair, sporting a wild grin that landed right in the uncanny valley. He was wearing a bloodstained set of Catholic exorcist robes. On his belt, he carried what appeared to be a standard issue light gun, and in his right hand he held a giant fuck you sword. I was 90% sure this was my guy, but I still wanted to get final confirmation before engaging.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" I yelled at him

"Freed Sellzen, at your service, you shitty little heretic." Freed replied, his grin somehow getting even larger and his eyes glinting in the relative darkness. "But I can't let that information leak out. Looks like I'll have to kill you! I'll send you to meet all the rest of your kind in hell!" Freed said, pulling out his gun and sending multiple shots downrange.

I quickly dove out of the way before following through with the motion, getting into a roll to close the distance to the window and vaulting though it. While engaging him in close quarters combat could be useful to limit his range of motion, fighting an exorcist - even a stray one, with his skill set was a fight I didn't want to take. Not to mention all the collateral damage a fight here would cause, and how pissed off the devils would be afterward.

Instead, I was going to lure the fucker out into the forest surrounding Kuoh and put the dog down there. I'd drag this fight out for a few minutes and finish his worthless existence off before the sunset.

"Hey! Get back here you shitty heretic! I'll give you a nice taste of my sword!" Freed yelled out from behind me. Giving him a look, he was keeping pace with me admirably well, even with his heavy gear and giant sword. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth, and he was practically drooling behind me.

I just wished he'd shut the fuck up and clean himself up, but I could play this game as well.

"Overcompensating for something over there Freed? Just because you have a big sword doesn't mean you have the skills to beat mine in a sword fight!" I said, increasing my pace to a full blown sprint.

By giving something for Freed to think about, hopefully he'd think less about the fight. It also helped me get over just how fucked up Freed was, which was probably one of the things that he used to intimidate people.

Drowning out the rest of Freed's insults, I finally made it to the forest, running deep into it before ducking into a bush and beginning to lay the foundations for a field. A simple combat geared field would do - no need to make it fancy or stable like the one I made in the church. Just a baseline field that took seconds to set up was all I needed.

Finally finishing my field, I took a moment to look around me. Freed had gone uncharacteristically silent, so it was possible that-

"FOUND YOU!"

I whipped around, and there was that bastard, sword raised far above his head and positioned for a mighty downward swing. I rolled to the side, barely avoiding his blade, and reached for a grenade. Before Freed had time to take his sword out of the earth, I rolled my grenade towards him before running away and shooting at him.

Freed managed to pull out his sword from the ground and deflected a good chunk of the blast as well as a good number of my shots, but his robes and face weren't fully protected, leaving him with singed clothing, some bleeding holes where light bullets made contact and a noticeable lack of eyebrows.

It would've been amusing if he wasn't trying to kill me.

"OH YOU LITTLE FUCK! I'M GOING TO FUCKING ENJOY TEARING YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!" an enraged Freed yelled as he charged straight towards me. He ran faster then I expected him to, and started to swing madly as soon as he closed in on me. I dodged a few attacks, before scampering up a tree, doing my best to avoid his swings, well aware of the damage that blade could do to me.

Freed seemed to experience a rare moment of lucidity and took out his pistol to start blasting away at me indiscriminately. His shots went completely wide as I leaped to a different tree, crashing through foliage and wincing as branches cut my face.

Freed never let up his barrage, so I kept on jumping from tree to tree, only stopping when I heard a painful yelp down below me informing that his gun had started overheating. Dumbass.

I quickly altered my field to begin actively absorbing and purifying natural energy within it's borders - especially Freeds. I also forced currents within it to pool the magic closer to where Freed was. Now, it was just a matter of keeping Freed in a single spot until I could gather enough force to take him out in one hit.

My task was made significantly harder as Freed realized that his situation was really shitty and there was no world where he won this fight, so he decided to bail. Not so fast fucker. I leaped downwards, a dozen meters in front of him, and lit up the night.

Freed tried to close the distance by rushing towards me, but I jumped to the side and continued the barrage. By simply spacing out each shot, and utilizing very different pistols then the ones Freed was using, these babies could go for far longer periods of time without overheating than his could.

The little hits my grenade and guns had landed were making a crucial difference in the fight, with Freed unable to properly grip his sword and use full strength in his legs. Where once he could keep up, and probably overtake me speed wise, that was now a pipe dream.

Those thoughts went out the window as the maniac threw his sword at me like a boomerang, forcing me to drop to a knee lest I be bisected by his newly found ranged weaponry. With a sudden burst of speed that he was hiding until now, Freed charged forwards and delivered a stunning kick to my head. My world shook for a moment, strange colours dancing across my vision as I fell the rest of the distance to the ground.

Seeing me downed, Freed went for the jugular, his second kick grazing my neck as I forced myself to roll to the side and stand up, still dizzy from his kick. I'd battled fucking ghouls in Alabama, some third rate exorcist wasn't going to be the end of me damnit!

Forcing my reserves of magic into my bloodstream and directing large amounts of it into my legs, I kneed him in the groin, feeling no small amount of satisfaction at the momentarily stunned look on Freed's face. I caught a punch to my face, and- his fist easily overpowered mine and slammed right into my face, knocking me flat on the ground in one solid hit.

What. The absolute. Fuck. He was definitely a whole lot stronger than I was at a base level, especially after I had suffered a major blow to the head. With me on the ground once again, Freed pulled out a knife and jumped on me for what would probably be the last time.

"I got you now, you filthy heretic! DIE!" Freed grunted, going for a stab at the biggest target he found suitable, my forehead. It almost reached it's target before I stopped the blow with an arm practically glowing with magic.

The dizziness I felt earlier was nothing compared to the absolutely nauseating sensation of drawing on energy that simply wasn't there. I could practically feel my soul coming out of my arm, an empty sensation replacing anything else that was within me. I was running on fumes, but… I still needed more time. So, I grit my teeth and soldiered on.

We struggled in this position, Freed slowly overpowering me, the cold tip of his knife making contact with the soft flesh of my forehead and slowly digging into it. Pain immediately made itself known, as he dug in deeper and deeper- definitely hitting bone - and still I refused to send any magic to my face to stop his blade.

Instead, I let out a sort of yell, accessing the critical mass of magic that was finally finished pooling underneath me, shaped it into the simplest thing I could think of, and forced it upwards through my body and into the bastard on top of me.

Freed went completely still as a giant stake skewered him through his midsection, a twisted look of pain taking a hold of his face before dozens of smaller stakes came up and stabbed him all over his body. From his chest to his arms, I sent righteous fury upwards and stabbed him enough times to turn a minotaur into mincemeat.

Dissipating the stakes, I struggled to my feet, feeling dizzy from the exertion of magic and the burning in my arms and chest, vision muddled by the blood running across my face. Almost done…

I forced magic into the shape of a knife and cut off Freed's sleeve, glad to find the tattoo signalling his status as an exorcist there. Whipping out my phone, I took a photo of the corpse with the tattoo clearly in frame.

Finally, I took out a lighter, and lit the fucker up. Collapsing my combat field and gathering the small amount of leftover magic, I shoved it all into the flames, averting my eyes and stumbling backward as I created a ridiculously hot fire, before covering my eyes with my hands. I continued to move back until I was a good dozen meters away from the flames. Even from that distance, I could still feel the heat emanating from the fire.

...I'd completely forgotten just how hot these holy fires got.

The smell hit me next, and I tried momentarily to stop myself from retching, before leaning to the side and ejecting my lunch. Over the course of time, the flames would burn him until literally nothing was left, and the hot fumes would deal with most of the smell. Still, the initial wave of putrid stench the flames emitted was enough to make me regret ever becoming an exorcist.

Memories of what happened when supernatural bodies weren't disposed of properly came rushing back to me, and I shivered despite the intense heat. Those memories were not pretty and were almost enough to begin a second round of puking.

Still, I did a physical quick check and remember that nice knife cut on my forehead. I wrapped up my head wound, popped some pain meds, and just sat there. I might have gotten a concussion. Just maybe. It certainly didn't feel like the other concussions I'd gotten, at least.

My arms and torso also felt like I stuck them inside the raging fire behind me. Waaay too much magic there, and it probably burned away a good portion of muscle as well. And to think the guy was still beating me in a contest of raw strength… If he wasn't completely insane and homicidal...

Freed would've been an excellent exorcist.

Then again, he was a former exorcist, but still.

After what felt like an eternity, the flames finally died out, leaving behind absolutely nothing other than scorched earth, having burned Freed's sword away as well.

A job… done. Not well done, just done. If Freed wasn't insane, he would've won the fight, no questions asked. If the forests surrounding Kuoh weren't quite so thick, I likely wouldn't have had enough natural energy to draw from to do that flashy stake move. I'd never been the best at expressing gratitude, but I closed my eyes and went for a prayer.

"God… thank you for your protection, and for giving me the extra bit of strength to... do some good in this world. I'm eternally grateful."

And honestly? It was all I could ever ask for.

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**A/N This chapter has been updated, once again, in large part thanks to my friends on the Extalia discord server! They've helped me improve drastically, and this revised chapter is just so much better then what it used to be. Special thanks to Airi, FatGamer, and Setsuna for you time :D**

**Here's a link to the server. Just remove the spaces and you're good ****discord . gg/ V54pcwA**

**I'm just getting back into the swing of things now. Expect a new chapter to drop sometime this month, with more to come afterwards.**

**Have a good one everybody!**

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**Changelog **

Chapter 1 posted Oct 17, 2019

Chapter 2 posted Oct 21 2019

Chapter 3 posted Nov 6 2019

Chapters 1-3 Merged + Updated Nov 6 2019

Chapter 1 revised May 18 2020

**Old A/N I felt that the merging was necessary, as I really didn't like the disjointed nature of the chapters already written. Expect any subsequent chapters to be of similar length. The guidelines for the story are still the same - Develop the inner workings of the church (some organizational structure as well their magic system), and make significant changes to canon without joining a peerage. I've never watched past season 2 of the anime myself, but if anyone has important things they want to share, I'll be open to it. I'll also be strictly following revealed canon information up until the filler after the Kokabiel fight.**

**All in all, fight scenes are fun to write but also the hardest. I'll probably get another chapter out before the end of winter break, but who knows. That's the preseason, and I wanna learn how to play around them drake changes!**

**As usual, please give any and all feedback you may have for me. Have a good one :D**


	2. Chapter 2

Of course, all decent things had to come to an end.

In front of me, a very angry Sona Sitri and what looked like her entire peerage touched down, weapons drawn.

"What is going on here?" Sona ground out, looking around, eyes particularly focused on the small crater the grenade left and the burnt earth where the fire was. Thank god the smell had been removed, or else she'd probably have put me down right then and there.

"I can explain," I said, slowly getting up and leaning against a tree. Thankfully, the nausea had faded with time as I regained my strength, and instead it was replaced by a comforting soreness that enveloped my entire body. "I found a stray exorcist - Freed Sellzen - torturing and killing a man in the downtown. I lured him out of town and into the forest, and killed him here."

Sona let out a long sigh after listening to me and turned to her peerage. "Tsubaki, clean up that head wound and juice him up. That bandage is filthy, and I won't have a diplomat dying within my jurisdiction. Everyone else, you're dismissed. Get a good night's rest, because we've got a long day tomorrow."

Sona then leapt up into the air before flying off, the rest of her peerage giving me a few glances before following her. Except for Tsubaki of course, who pulled out a vial of green liquid and a first aid kit from seemingly nowhere and presented them to me.

"This is an underworld classic. really it's just a blend of various medicinal herbs and antibiotics, but it's more commonly known as "the juice" She said, popping open the vial and handing it to me. I slumped back down the ground, looking at the vial. With a considerable amount of hesitation, I took the vial and down the liquid.

"Oh, and I may have forgotten to mention. It's also infamous for tasting absolutely terrible and feels like liquid hellfire when you down it." She said as I felt my throat light on fire the moment the green sludge from _hell _(quite literally) touched it. I leaned further back into the tree, holding my throat and wishing away the pain, which, true to her word, began to subside.

"Couldn't you have mentioned that before I downed it?" I groaned, feeling much more awake after that shock.

"Ah, cheer up! First time reactions are always the best. Honestly, you're never going to experience something like it again." she said, smirking a little. "In any case, after the initial effects subside it's great for pain relief and decreases your overall recovery time. It also mixes well with most medicines around, so it's a pretty universal drug."

"And when do those effects start to kick in?"

"Generally around 10-15 minutes after use. In any case, let's replace that bandage you've got on your head." She gathered a ball of water before submerging the top of my head in it. "I'm going to remove the old bandage, and clean the wound before putting on a new one."

The sensation of the water around my head was a very odd one. I could feel the thrum of demonic magic all around my head and my mind was screaming at my body to get out of it, but at the same time, it was an incredibly soothing feeling. Cool, calming water moving small, fast motions around my forehead.

After removing the end of the shirt I had been using as a bandage and cleaning the area thoroughly, Tsubaki withdrew the water and dumped it to the side, leaving my head completely clean and dry. She then took out a roll of gauze and clean bandages and wrapped up my head wound.

Tsubaki gave her handiwork a one over, before nodding to herself and taking a few steps back. "You should be well on your way to recovery now. I'm going to be going now, but my familiar is going to be nearby. Yell loud enough and we can probably lend you a helping hand." And with that, Tsubaki summoned a teleportation circle and left the clearing.

Once the light from the circle vanished, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in. When I was assigned to Kuoh, I wasn't exactly expecting a cakewalk, but I certainly wasn't expecting this shit storm either. I took my canteen out and drank the remaining water in an effort to calm my nerves. It was obvious that I was going to have to kick things into high gear and there was a lot of work to be done here.

I desperately needed rest, but now wasn't the time to stop. Calling in backup had crossed my mind multiple times, but ultimately that was going to be extremely unrealistic. Disregarding how spread out the church was these days, having a sudden escalation in the church's concentration of power in an influential country such as Japan would throw the balance of power out the window. No, all I could do was report my findings, and step my own game up.

Forcing myself to my feet, I took out my phone and sent my handlers my photo of Freeds tattoo, along with a quick recording of what happened. That finished, I made my way back to the church, happy that I lived to see another day.

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**A/N So here's a relatively short chapter. I'm just trying to sort out what I want to do with the story right now, with more chapters to come. Please leave your feedback down below in the review section :D**

**Here's a link to the server. Just remove the spaces and you're good ****discord . gg/ V54pcwA**

**Have a good one everyone!**


	3. Chapter 3

I walked down the streets of downtown Kuoh, taking my sweet time and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the town. My fight with Freed had done a number on me. Among the damage were a broken nose, a few broken ribs and an alarming amount of muscle atrophy in my upper body. The drink that Sona had given me was drastically speeding up my recovery time, but I was still going to take it slow and give my body time to recover.

For days I walked around Kuoh setting up small fields here and there, adjusting the currents around the place for easier access and other preparation work. I'd even managed to get into contact with a construction company to get the church fixed up, but for the time being I boarded up most of the windows and left it at that.

You can imagine my surprise when I found 2 women in exorcist robes - one of which had an even larger fuck you sword than the one Freed wielded - sitting on a park bench. Judging by the tan shade and red trimming of their robes, they were probably high ranking exorcists. I slowly walked towards them, making sure to make a wide loop around so that I would maximize my time in their field of view before nearing them.

To be honest, they looked too dejected to care, but it was a good idea to handle unknowns with care.

"Excuse me?" I said, extending a hand towards the one with the blue hair and the giant sword. "Erwin Jiang, Protestant Exorcist."

The girl eyed my hand for a moment before she shook it. "I'm Xenovia Quarta, and my partner here is Irina Shidou."

Finishing the introduction, I opened up my jacket slightly, revealing my gun. Closing my eyes, I felt for the field I'd previously constructed around the park and diverted a few currents through my body - purifying it and brought it into the chamber of my gun. Opening my eyes, I saw the gun's chamber glow a soft yellow, before it faded away completely.

With how decentralized the church was these days, a showing of weapons was often all the verification you could reasonably provide. No exorcists could charge their light guns if they ever strayed far from the light, the nature of holy magic saw to that.

Xenovia gave me a nod and slightly peeled back the bandages wrapping around her sword, revealing a part of its handle.

"Hot damn, Excalibur destruction… Why-" I was interrupted by the growling of Irina's stomach. I raised a brow at Xenovia. With a sigh, she explained how Irina had blown all their money on a fake portrait of a saint.

"You know what, I found this great sandwich shop downtown. We can talk about what's going on over lunch. My treat."

* * *

Boy, that turned out to be a mistake. I stared at the wrappers laid out around the table in the booth we'd taken. The girls had completely decimated - no that was putting it too lightly. They'd completely _annihilated _a giant order. There must've been…. 8? No, at least 10 thousand calories of the food that they burned through.

"Where… Where did all that food go?" I whispered in astonishment.

"Heehee, what can I say, I was hungry," Irina said, grinning my way. "Thanks for the food"

"Don't mention it…" I replied, shaking my head before fishing around in my pockets for a silencing seal and slapping it on the table.

"All right, the seal I just applied changes what everyone in our vicinity will hear. It completely nullifies any sound that comes out of the booth, and any onlookers will fill in the blanks subconsciously. The odds that anyone sees through this are incredibly small, so speak freely.

"In any case, I'll ask again. To what do I owe the pleasure of 2 senior exorcists?"

Xenovia took a long sip from her drink before replying, carefully choosing her words.

"Two nights ago, a… strike team of sorts stole 3 holy swords from the Catholic and Orthodox churches. We have reasonable intelligence to suggest that they've taken the swords here, to Kuoh."

I sat back in my seat for a moment, taking the information in. Holy swords were some of the most well-guarded relics the church possessed, each stored separately in incredibly secure vaults. To think that 3 of them were lost in the span of one night… I could see why this information wasn't shared with me.

An event like this would cause an uproar, not just in the sense that the higher-ups would be foaming at the mouth to find who the culprit was and capture them, such a massive breach in security wouldn't be taken lightly by any of the branches, and there would be an outcry of support demanding to know how such a disaster could've ever happened.

Rubbing my eyes, I quickly went over my options before coming back to my original conclusion - I had to help the girls out. My mission was to set up shop for any potential continued activities in Kuoh, and even if their mission technically fell outside of my list of duties, securing weapons as powerful as the holy swords would always be a massive priority.

With a plan formulating in my mind, I waited for the girls to finish eating before I spoke up. "I'm going to help you two with retrieving the swords. I can follow magic trails, so the search shouldn't last too long." I said, standing up at my seat and taking the seal off the table. "But first, I think we should rest up before moving out. I've got a place where you can crash, and we can move out later tonight."

A curt nod from Xenovia finalized our plan, and we moved back to the church to sleep.

* * *

Even with my short time in Kuoh, I dedicated a solid portion of time to clean up the church myself. It was still pretty run down, but I pushed all the rotting pews to one side of the church, forming a large pile with the stuff in a corner, topping it off with the flimsy carpet that was stapled to the ground.

At night, the church was getting surprisingly cold. The plywood on the windows helped quite a lot with the temperature at night, and by leaving the tops I allowed airflow through the church to disperse any smoke and heat that could be built over the course of the day. The church had lost most of the musty smell it had accumulated, and with the pews pushed away to one side it felt a lot more spacious then it had any right being.

The only place I hadn't done much work in was the basement, but that was a project too large for me to tackle on my own (especially with my limited funding), so I used my leftover wood to cover up the entrance to that nightmare and chose to forget about it.

In any case, it was miles better then some of the run-down "shelters" I'd slept in over my tenure as an exorcist, and the girls seemed to agree. I conked 'em both out with some energy directed from my field, and let myself drift off to sleep as well, confident in the field's ability to alert me should something go wrong.

Thankfully, instead of being woken up by the intense warning signals I'd get from an intruder, I was instead awoken by electric shocks running through my arm. Groaning, I lazily tore the wires off of my arm and threw them to the side, before turning off the electric alarm clock I set for myself and sat up. Through the gaps in the windows, I could see the sun setting - like always, the alarm had worked perfectly.

Pulling myself out of my sleeping back, I took out my stove and a small pot, filling it with water from my canteen and letting it boil before throwing 3 packs of MRE's inside. Once the food was properly heated, I enveloped the girls with energy given to me by the field, painlessly waking them up.

"Come on over, I've got some MREs before we get going."

Irina was the first to make it over to me, looking at the pack of food and the spoon I handed to her with some apprehension. I figured I'd lead by example and opened the plastic bag myself and dug in with the spoon.

Irina copied my actions soon after, opening her own pack and starting to eat as well.

"Never eat an MRE like this before?" I asked her in between bites of my mystery meat lasagna.

Irina shook her head. "I normally operated near the Vatican, so there wasn't really a need for anything like this," she said, before frowning at her MRE. "I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it feels oddly filling while also being terrible.

"Looks like you got the good stuff," Xenovia said, sitting down next to us and ripping into her own pack. "Erwin, you got any blueberry jam over there?"

"Probably?" I said, looking around inside the small pile of opened MRE's before finding one with blueberry jam inside it, tossing her the packet of the jam as well as the biscuit it came with.

"Back in the UK, we'd have these all the time while out in the field. Blueberry jam was always my favourite." Xenovia said, opening both packets and squeezing out a thick dollop of jam onto the biscuit. Ah, that made sense. Regardless of what people said about the church, logistical issues were universal, and oftentimes more generic bulk orders were funded by both branches together. It really wasn't surprising that some of the surplus found itself in the hands of trainees.

"How long have you been working together?" I asked them.

"A few years now," Irina said, wrapping an arm around her partner. "We got sent to the Vatican around the same time when we showed potential for becoming exorcists, and have been a team ever since. We've also been training under Griselda for around a year now."

Now _that _was a shock. Griselda was somewhat of a legend within the church, and not only for her incredible skill in combat. She had been the one who'd singlehandedly stopped a diplomatic disaster in Romania, a disaster that probably would've pulled in every supernatural faction under the sun with a stake in the magical energy that the vampires stockpiled (which is to say, all of them).

To be working disciples, was, to say the least, _really cool. _

Sensing a lull in the conversation, I quickly finished my food before closing my eyes and reaching out to my field, slowly agitating the waves and mixing in some of my own magic – energizing them and making them visible.

I frowned slightly when I heard small gasps coming from the girls. Where they not familiar with protestant fields? Not even Xenovia, who had started her career in the UK where the Anglican/Protestant presence was felt incredibly strongly?

Regardless, I could still roll with it. The situation just became a little more annoying, but definitely workable. I opened my eyes and stood up, reaching for one of the waves and letting it run over my hand.

"The Protestant branch of magic is generally focused in tapping into the energy already present in the world, and using the self or constructed fields as a focal point to direct said energy," I said, directing the waves to dance around the air, before letting them fall back into their natural patterns and cutting off my magic from entering the field

"I'm attuned to feeling out these energies, so tracking the energy output of artifacts as strong as holy swords shouldn't be an issue. If you are all okay with it, I'd also like to cast a spell that acts like a radio. We'll be able to communicate on the field almost silently. It also means that the longer the fight lasts, the more energy I can gather and utilize. In other words, I fight best when I either have ample time to set up, or draw out the fight."

I was met by a round of small nods and went about casting the spells in their ears, whispering "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." each time.

"Alright! Let's get those swords back!" Irina cried, causing Xenovia and I to wince at the amplified volume of her voice.

"Irina, please never do that again."

"What?"

"That."

* * *

**A/N So yeah, still here. Not much to talk about in all honesty. This chapters been in the works for a while, and I have some serious doubts about how I want to write the story moving forwards, but we'll see what happens. The dialogues a little clunky in this chapter, but fuck it, I'll give it a look over a few months from now.**

**Please fav and follow if you enjoyed the story thus far, maybe post your thoughts in the reviews? Thanks for reading :D**


	4. Chapter 4

**King0fP0wers – to be completely honest, that was my intention going on. Drop in an average, run of the mill exorcist, and see where it goes from there. I'm going to use this chapter to really hammer the point home; as far as strength goes, MC is an **_**average, run of the mill exorcist**_**.**

* * *

Finding the swords was relatively easy. Despite the obvious attempts at disguising the magical signatures of the weapons, their trail was still simple enough to follow. In all honesty it was more of a testament to the strength of the swords than my ability to track them.

As we walked further and further into the forest, the currents around us also became slower, steadier, and pulsed with a steady beat. If the currents in Kuoh were fast moving rapids, then what I was sensing now were the slow moving, off shoots from the source, and we were travelling towards it.

After hours of silent travel, we came across a dilapidated warehouse. The magical currents were a lot stronger here, with the waves getting even wider and slower. A quick check of my phone confirmed my suspicions – we were walking towards the general direction of Kyoto, one of the true spiritual centers of the world.

In any case, we stopped outside the warehouse, and took a few minutes to scope it out. Whoever set up shop at the warehouse must've been extremely confident in their secrecy, as a look at the currents and magical signatures in the air found no warning spells or similar surveillance fields set up. No guards were posted up either, though there was the possibility that some sort of familiar was keeping watch.

The currents here were so powerful and yet malleable, I almost couldn't help myself from tapping into them and setting up a field. I'd never interacted with currents quite this strong, but something in my gut told me that the fields formed here would incredible.

Still, I stayed my hand when I realized that a significant portion of the current veered towards the warehouse, and left moving slightly faster than when it entered. Looking back to where said wave strayed from the main current, the angle the branching waves simply felt wrong, the angle of the turn was too sharp. It was hard to tell if this was a recent diversion or if the currents had simply grown to follow this path, but I had to get a closer look.

Motioning to the girls to follow me, we circled around the building until we found suitable grove of trees. Climbing up one of them, I clambered onto a branch and looked through one of the higher windows on the warehouse.

"His eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly" I muttered to myself. I got a look from Irina and Xenovia for this, but I ignored them and focused my enhanced vision on what was on the other side of the window.

Various shelves and stacks of crates were positioned around the warehouse, leaving the center of the warehouse open where a short fat man excitedly writing on a giant ritual circle with an Excalibur fragment on it, before looking over to a screen to his side periodically and continuing his work.

Two figures were leaning on crates to the left of the scientist. They seemed to be talking to each other, but with the glare in the window even my enhanced vision couldn't make out what they were saying.

Apparently Xenovia also saw the Excalibur as before I could do so much as call out to her she was out of the tree and crashing through the window of the church.

Cursing, I leapt off of my branch and followed through the window as well, Irina not far behind me. Steadying myself on the catwalk, I spotted Xenovia fighting the two fallen angels we'd spotted earlier, while Irina was already on her way down to assist her partners.

That left two objectives up in the air – the scientist, and the Excalibur fragment I spotted earlier. Directing my attention towards the center of the warehouse, I spotted the scientist booking it for the exit on the right side of the warehouse, Excalibur in hand.

Well, that made my decision much easier.

"Oh no you don't…" I growled, opening fire on him as I ran along the catwalk towards the stairs to cut off his escape. I would have jumped down as Irina and Xenovia had, but I wasn't sure if my body could handle the strain. The ideal solution would've been for me to capture the scientist alive so that I could question him on what he was doing, but I refused to take chances with something as important as the holy swords on the line.

My first few shots landed on target, hitting him in the back and shoulder before he dropped to the ground, landing behind a stack of crates that blocked my follow up shots. I'd probably killed the guy already, but I wasn't happy until I saw a body.

Having reached the stairs, I lobbed a grenade over the crates as I began descending the stairs before my instincts _screamed _at me to stop. I dropped the pistol in my left hand as I reached for the railing, barely stopping myself from running face first into an upwards slash from underneath the metal stairs.

A look through the gaps in the metal and I found a third, shorter fallen angel sporting a giant smile, arm extended with a sword that he'd just tried to stab me with.

"Oh, you're fast! Finally, some excitement! Let's tango!" He said, before jumping up at me, sword arm extended.

Luckily, I had seen a such strike coming, and while he was busy talking about how he wanted to kill me I had placed a hand on the railing behind me. Pumping magic energy through my upper body I vaulted over it towards the ground.

Having traded places with my assailant, I ran towards where I last saw the scientist. My explosion had already gone off, but I still spotted the scientist making a run for the other exit on the left, towards Xenovia and Irina. The fact that he lived through those shots was mind boggling for me though, those definitely should've been lethal.

Regardless, I chased the scientist down the aisle, nailing the scientist a few times in the back before swapping my remaining pistol from my right hand to my left hand and unsheathing my sword. At this point I was relatively sure that I'd killed the scientist, and all I wanted to do was grab the Excalibur's and get the hell out of dodge.

My plans were abruptly interrupted by a tall fallen angel dropping before me wings outstretched, tanking the rest of my shots and placing himself in between myself and the Excalibur fragment. The fallen angel shot his hand forwards, surrounded by magic circles, and in mere moments I was being bombarded with light spears.

Thankfully, in those few moments between when the magical circles formed and the spears were launched I managed to dive to the left into a new aisle, away from the light spears. The entirety of the warehouse shook from the impacts, and a few boxes on the top of the shelves came crashing down towards tall angel, though those would only be momentary distractions for someone with that amount of sheer firepower.

I used those few seconds of reprieve to begin wrenching the slow currents into a field centered around the center of the warehouse. It wasn't going to be an quality job by any means, but it would provide a more structured conduit to force magic through as opposed to my fleshy body, scuffed as it would be. Before I was anywhere near done with the field, I dove away from my previous hiding spot, barely getting out of the way of a new volley of light spears - this time, they blew up on impact.

Realistically, there were only 2 real options for killing the guy – hitting him in a vital with a surprise attack, or to gather enough energy to enable a large attack strong enough to ignore the enemies defenses.

Small problem to either plan – the short angel was also there and was damn near on top of me. As he came running at me down the aisle I opened fire on him. He had a slightly different answer to my shots when compared to the other fallen angel – instead of blocking the shots, he _flipped _over them before continuing to run down the lane at me.

Seeing the futility of my current weapon, I put away my pistol and pulled the pin on a grenade before throwing it at him. Not wasting time to see the results of my stalling tactic, I turned around and started running before a barrage of light spears could find their way through my chest. I ran towards the center of the warehouse where I remembered the Excalibur fragment to be, and also the point that I centered my field around.

Turns out, my grenade must have not been all that effective as short angel landed behind me and began sprinting at me again.

"Keep on running! Give me the chase I crave!" He yelled at me. Frankly, I was tired of having to deal with deranged homicidal maniacs. Must've been something to do with the corrupting nature of magic/power in general. A thought for a later time, to be sure.

There really wasn't time to consider these possibilities as short angel was gaining on me.

I was _way _out of my depth here. The current I had begun prepping earlier was simply wasn't ready for use, but I needed to whip out something. Gritting my teeth in preparation for the incredibly stupid thing I was about to do, I threw out a lance of my magical power, forcing current out of it's natural flow and into my body pushing it out through my legs.

I, quite literally, exploded forwards as explosions of magic power propelled me through the air. A hastily formed barrier ahead of me helped make sure I wasn't smeared into a pancake on impact, but I certainly felt the hit as I skidded for a good 3 meters on the ground before coming to a stop in front of the ritual circle to find – no Excalibur.

Regardless, now that I was really at the center of the warehouse, I sensed an incredibly amount of holy energy around the crates to my right. I didn't have time to consider the implications of this discovery however, as I pulled in every last drop of magical power I could to shield my body from the barrage of light spears tall angel had begun showering me with.

The light spears that hit my barrier pushed me back and off balance, while the subsequent light spears threw me back like ragdoll straight through the crates and into another tall shelf of goods.

As the boxes began falling on top of me, I moved with pure desperation, managing to get underneath the upturned frame of the shelf as boxes began landing on top of me. I still miraculously had all my limbs attached to me and none of my organs had been turned into jam yet, but in the scramble I had lost my sword.

Moving my right arm to reach for my pistol brought on a whole host of new concerns, as I found that my right arm had gotten pulverized from the multiple impacts. There was some limited hope for salvaging it, but it was seriously unlikely it would ever be the same again, and it would certainly be dead weight for the fight ahead.

Outside for a largely ineffective pistol and a few grenades I was essentially weaponless. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Gathering my energy, I sent out another lance of power, forcing energy from the large current to bend to my will and come to me, hardening with the rest of debris and constructing a crude barrier.

I sat there in my makeshift shelter for a few moments coughing up blood and struggling to breath with all the dust in the air, as the entire structure shook with each light spear tall angel sent my way.

Letting the tears run freely now, I closed my eyes, keenly aware of the sweat drenching my body and the way my heart thumped like an MG-42.

I clenched my jaw, stuffing away all my doubts about my barrier and focusing intensely on my field. I focused completely on my work on the field, manhandling the slow moving currents into something that I could tap into as my barrier slowly fell apart above me.

When I first tried directly tapping into the currents while running away from short angel I fully expected to die from the sudden overload of magical energy. Without a field to act as a conduit, I thought that the currents would rip my body apart. It seemed like there was something different about the currents here though, they were a whole lot stabler and easier to control then the currents back home, and I dare say the ones in Kuoh as well.

With a larger field as a base, I could direct all the energy I needed though the field instead of through myself, greatly increasing the amount of energy I could tap into at once, at the cost precise use.

That being said, the creation of a field as large as what I was shooting for was incredibly taxing on my reserves, so I sat still underneath my barrier and tuned out the world around me. In my mind, it was just me, the current, and the field.

And as a light spear punched through my barrier and shot straight through my gut, pinning me to the crates behind me, I couldn't help but grin anyways.

My field was complete.

* * *

**A/N And there we go! Another chapter in the books, and it ends on a mini-cliffhanger at that :D I'll be honest, this chapter was incredibly delayed, mainly because I was wrestling with whether or not I should set a certain precedent for the future and where I wanted to take the story as a whole from here. I've come to some tentative solutions, and I'm set to continue writing. **

**To everyone's that around, reading, thank you. I find it really cool that I can make peoples days just that little bit better with my writing. If any of you have any thoughts on the story (and I do mean ANY thoughts), please don't hesitate to leave them in the reviews. I read all of em, and they really are fuel for a writer '^.^**

**Thanks for reading!**


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